THE AMERICAN VIEW: What Was Missing at the World Cup?

Though I didn’t watch much of the Women’s World Cup this past weekend, I sure was happy to hear that America emerged victorious. Unlike other victorious World Cup teams across the world, there was no mention of thanks to God or Jesus from the American players.

I believe this is symptomatic of the emerging citizenry of America. Tragically, the outward proclamation of our belief, reliance, and thankfulness to our Creator is becoming less and less prominent, while an increased deification of man, will power, and self has become the rule. This has created an outright rejection of God-given rights, which has been replaced with rights we as humans create for ourselves.

Let me explain the senselessness of this ancient religion of self, using the World Cup as an example.

Imagine just before kick off a new rule was introduced. According to this new rule of play, the U.S. could actually never have possession of the ball.

Every time they either received a kick-off or recovered the ball or intercepted a pass, play would stop immediately and possession of the ball would be returned to the other team.

In this scenario, you couldn’t possibly win because you need the ball to score.

In the same way, if we try to argue for our rights to life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness without acknowledging that our origin is a Divine one, we are trying to score without the ball.

It’s impossible to make a case for your individual rights without first — as our founders did in the Declaration of Independence — acknowledging the existence of a Creator God, Who is the author of those rights.

If we don’t start with Christ as the Creator and author of rights, we have no rational or logical basis for asking others to respect them.

Trying to argue for your rights without a Supreme Right Giver is like trying to score without the ball. Game over.

Dr. Benjamin Rush was considered by John Adams to be one of America’s three most notable Founding Fathers. He declared: “It is only necessary for republicanism to ally itself to the Christian religion to overturn all the corrupted political and religious institutions of the world.”

I believe every American woman on that World Cup field deserves the highest respect and praise for their amazing achievements and the great victory they have won for America. However, I am grieved that not one of them could acknowledge the self-evident truth understood by Americans since our founding.

The God of the Universe and His providential hand through many of his disciples set the stage for a free-market society where sports and entertainment can thrive. This is just another reason we should all be grateful to Jesus Christ and His gracious love towards us.

My prayer is that before the tremendous opportunity to win next year’s title, our unified belief in this eternal Truth will be made apparent to the world. This would be right. This would be American.

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